GF asked after I put the girls (and Sammie) back in their pen. She had been on the screened in back porch listening to the race
Yep, but I had to fire both fingers.

I stood, this morning in the deep shade offered by tall privet, sweet gum and tall devils walking sticks . Only the occasional vine ran up the tree trunks in search of the light that was stopped by the thick canopy some twenty feet above the mostly barren ground. There was a line of big rubs made by a buck whitetail that often hid in the bottom during deer season.
My duty was to turn the rabbit as he made for the property line and the thick undergrowth that covered that section of a neighbor’s former pasture. I didn’t want the girls (and Sammie) tangling with his burro, if I could avoid it.

The Girls (and Sammie) were in hot pursuit of the pasture rabbit that they had jumped midway down the ponds drainage creek in the back yard of Rabbit Run. The shape of the area surrounded by pasture was roughly
//= = >O with the o being the pond.

There was a new voice joining in with Lucy‘s yard dog bark, Katie’s one note hammering and Penny‘s modified bay. Kind of a high pitched squeal. It wasn’t Sammie who sounds a lot like Penny, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Sissy, so that leaves Sally, the oldest of the puppies.
I didn’t see the rabbit this time, but the girls (and Sammie) curled up the hill in front of me, out into the paddock where their pen is. A fast loop through one of my gardens and then back into the really thick briars and willows below the dam.

I moved up to the opposing hillside and listened to the girls as they (and Sammie) crossed the now dry creek bed.

The rabbit popped up out of the thick and ran the edge of the pasture towards where I was standing under a oak where the woods makes a right angle. A deer, probably the author of the line of big rubs behind me, often makes a scrape under it’s low lying limbs.

I waited, tracking him, waiting for him to close the gap to a decent shooting distance.
Bang!
Bang!
Even in the preseason, I shoot about as well as I do when actually hunting. Maybe, even a little better, but it still took firing both fingers.

The pups stayed with the “Girls” most of the morning though I did see Sally looking for me while I was at the house refilling my coffee cup.

It was a good race.
I can think of nothing better for the pups than to run with the big girls after rabbits with no deer around. They might not be to sure of what’s happening, but they are bonding and if Sally’s squeal was any indication, beginning to catch on